Blindspot recap: The truth about Zapata

With last week’s episode finally settling the feud between Remi and Jane, allowing Jane to come back as herself but with all of Remi’s memories, this season of Blindspot can finally get back to the business of HCI Global continuing as a terrorist organization. Hank Crawford may be dead, but Madeline has kept the terrorist spirit alive and well at the company, planning to crash a plane full of innocent people in order to win a defense contract. The other concern for the FBI is curing Jane. Sure, she’s back to being Jane, but the ZIP poisoning is still doing its damage.

At the top of the episode we learn a little bit more about where the ZIP poisoning came from during a flashback. A company called Kearns Pharmaceutical was trying to create a drug that would help with neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s, but during the process they created something with fatal results. The doctor working on the project, Dr. Roga, called for it to be canceled. Two years prior to the events of this season, Roga storms her boss’ office with evidence that some ZIP had been sold despite her call for the program to be dismantled. He assures her that it was all in the past and that the criminal parties have been dealt with. When she leaves, he makes a call. He wants Roga and her assistant taken out.

Back in the present day, the team is working to find a cure for the ZIP poisoning. Jane remembers that Shepherd told Remi about someone by the name of Kallisto whom Roman was tracking down. Jane gives that information to Patterson and Rich, and they do their clue-solving thing to find a data cache that points to Dr. Roga. Unfortunately, they have to tell Jane and Weller the bad news that she died two years ago. There’s little hope for a cure here, but the team still wants to talk to her son Clay, who’s a professor working in a similar field.

When the team brings Clay in to ask him questions, Weller gets heated after the FBI learns he received a huge inheritance despite the fact that his mother was apparently struggling to make ends meet. He gets right in his face and promises to dig into every part of his life to find out the truth about what happened to Dr. Roga, and Jane has to pull him aside. Faced with the thought of losing Jane after just getting her back, Weller’s having trouble composing himself. So, it’s up to Jane to keep him focused.

After doing a little digging on the trust, Rich and Patterson discover that it was somehow set up the day after Roga died. Unsure how that could happen, they trace the trust to a bank that’s been swallowed up by other companies a few times, and find video surveillance of Dr. Roga herself walking into the bank on that day, meaning she faked her death and is perhaps still out there somewhere. A quick trace of Clay’s phone records reveals that he was unknowingly receiving calls from his mother on Sunday nights, at the same time when they used to go to a diner together. There was never any talking, but it was her way of checking up on her son. So, the team trace the calls to a home in the woods, where Dr. Roga is living free of the threat of Kearns Pharmaceutical. The problem? Clay is so excited that his mother is alive that he calls to tell his fiancée the news, which tips off Kearns to Dr. Roga’s whereabouts. Apparently they’ve been tracing his phone for two years? That doesn’t really explain how they figure out the location, but hey, let’s not dive too deep into the logic of a procedural that gets crazier every season. (Recap continues on next page)